After
by writerfan2013
Summary: Sherlock is home after a different kind of mission. He has not told John what it was. But will John know? Slight AU I guess. But it's my headcanon...Three parter. Johnlock alert! Part 2 - in Islamabad. Now part 3 - Later. John's need to know. Sherlock's need for John.
1. After

I thrust open the door and see John at the table by the window, reading a newspaper. He has taken advantage of my absence to hoover. Many small items have been removed from the floor. He's no housewife, though: they are repositioned on the table. He ate last night's takeaway around the debris. He has not eaten yet tonight - he has been waiting for me. There are Jammy Dodger crumbs on his lower lip.

He is tired - poor sleep rather than excessive activity - and his hands are full of the tension which he gathers inside himself when I am not here. I can see the awkward way his fingers grip the newspaper. They have been clenched more or less all the time I've been gone.

Ah John. It's good to see you.

He lifts his head and looks me straight in the eye as always. "You're back, then."

"Evidently." I drop my flight bag and unwind my scarf, flinging it on the sofa. My coat is unbuttoned in three seconds, and hefted over the sofa arm.

"Good trip?"

His tone is bland, polite, mildly interested. Does he know where I have been? How could he? I have been exceptionally careful on this one. Yet my paranoia rears up and wonders if he can see it in my face, in my body language, in the way I rest my hand on the back of the other dining chair.

Ridiculous. Yet I shift my stance and say too quickly, "Fine. Dinner?"

He smiles. He has been waiting for me to ask. "Case finished?"

I never said I was on a case. I wasn't. Yet it was a mission similar to a case and I have barely eaten. "More or less. -Yes."

A faint line appears between his eyes. I do not usually hesitate over my words. Every sentence is preprocessed. Mostly, anyway. John has witnessed almost all of the involuntary utterances. "You all right?" he asks, folding the paper, getting to his feet, frowning and adopting that brusque, casual tone he uses when he feels he is expressing an unmanly level of concern for his flatmate.

"Yes." If this is to be the level of conversation at dinner, I may reconsider. I concede: "Are you?"

"Fine, yeah."

I scan the room. John is four feet away on the other side of the table. My music stand is behind him. Good.

I saunter round and pluck at sheet music, scattered with my own pencil notations. Once you lose the fear of amending a so-called masterpiece, you can make some real improvements.

John is beside me, holding the daily rag, and as I take a breath to sigh out over my music, I inhale his scent, his honest masculinity, Imperial Leather soap and Lynx deodorant (that weird chocolate one supposed to attract the opposite sex but actually quite pleasant), espresso coffee from the machine at the surgery and sweat from the crowded commute home. Maybe he will shower later. I like the sweat but I also like the just-washed John smell. It's a close call between them, actually. John just smells good, generally. Good, and, thank God, male.

I have showered twice since parting from her, and still I long for my bath.

If I mention my (slight) injury, John will almost certainly offer to run me one.

If I do though, dinner will be delayed. We both need to eat. There is much to be done. I have neglected actual cases for this trip to Islamabad, and must catch up. An all-nighter may be called for... if John goes to bed. I hope he doesn't.

I scowl at my music and reach for the violin itself. Honestly. Unable to choose between a case and John's company. Dreadful. But these are unique circumstances.

John's hand lands on my shoulder, cupping the top of my arm. Warm palm, strong fingers. "You've got scratches on the back of your neck."

I slap my hand over them. "Bit of a fight," I say.

"They look nasty, let me take a look -"

"It's fine, don't fuss -"

He steps away, eyebrows raised. He hates being accused of fussing, even though he does, near constantly. When I am injured. Which is near constantly. I suppose it is fair enough.

"It's fine John, honestly."

Freud would smirk. Why do I need to add that last word? Am I trying to highlight truthfulness in the midst of my deception?

"Is your back ok?" he asks then.

My paranoia appears justified. (She promised me no one would know. Her favour to me, although when you look at the situation dispassionately, I seem to have done her far more favours than she has repaid. This may be part of the general problem with women: that they do not measure worth as we do. More thought required. No more research though. For the rest, I will extrapolate.) "It's fine. Shall we?" I indicate the door.

How does he know about my back? Am I walking funny? That is eminently possible. I have exercised places I only knew about in theory. Oh god.

I pick John's coat off the stand and help him into it. I am close to him again. As I place the anorak around his shoulders I experience a moment of pure sentiment and make a show of adjusting his collar while I recover. He is so valuable, so sweet and serious, and basically I cannot resist. Sometimes I think he knows it. The rest of the time he ignores his screaming subconscious in order to maintain his inaccurate version of reality.

I do wonder what he thinks I do for relief, for pleasure, for fun. Does he assume I do nothing? Does he assume I see women? Surely not. I mean, I could. Especially now. But the idea is somewhat fantastic. Men, then. He knows I don't.

There is only him, for now. He is currently my only person. And he smells so right. After all I've been through I want nothing more, at this moment, than to press my face to the nape of his neck and breathe him in, anchor myself once again in Baker Street, in the work, in John. I haven't shaved since Istanbul airport and my stubble would make him lurch round, hands wafting me away. But for a moment I would have his skin against mine and know comfort.

I want comfort. I - don't need it. Barring food, shelter and warmth, anything can be done without. Tonight though, I am appearing on the spectrum familiar to most people: I imagine my desires as needs, and I desire physical consolation.

Irene would no doubt take this as a massive insult. And she would be welcome.


	2. Before

Irene flings herself into his arms, gasping, sobbing.

He puts her aside. "You do not need to play the damsel in distress with me. You are safe. That is all."

The room has peeling paint, a cracked tiled floor, rattan rugs. There is a smell of animals. But it is quiet and cosy here, and the citrus oils burning in the lamps keep the worst of the moths out of their faces.

There is a bed. Just one bed, a metal frame and hand stuffed mattress – hay perhaps or more likely, horse and goat hair – and he does not feel chivalrous enough to even offer to sleep on the floor, so they will be sharing it.

"My sister," he told the man who owns this house. Their matching dark hair and pale skin were apparently convincing enough, or else the man cares little for propriety among Westerners.

Two beds would have been better.

But beggars, and fugitives, cannot be choosers, or at least, not until they reach some less remote part of this land of remoteness.

"We should rest," he says shortly. "There is a voyage tomorrow and we will need to be alert."

"All right. Which side do you want, left or right? Or on top? I bet it's on top." Her smile to signify enticing wickedness.

He ignores her and takes off his jacket. His shoes.

She says, "Don't you want to undress me?"

"No." He saved her, rescued her, is about to co-operate in hiding her. He has done enough.

She pouts.

"You are more than capable, I assume, of removing your own clothes. It would appear to be a job requirement."

She laughs.

After a moment he sighs and smiles too. "We need to rest," he says. "But if you are going to keep insisting on this meaningless attempt at flirtation, that will delay sleep."

"I'm not flirting. I'm seducing." She unwraps herself from the modest black robes in which she has travelled. Beneath them she wears pale blue, a salwar kameez, edged with gold.

"Please, don't explain the difference. I don't care." He turns away as she begins to unbutton her collar.

"Flirting is done with no intentions. Seduction, of course, has an end goal." She has her hand on his arm. Her eyes are bright.

He says, "I'm not hungry." His standard reply.

She smiles wolfishly. "Even better."

"No, it isn't."

She eyes him. "I think... I think you're always hungry. Like a monk who lives from his begging bowl, walking from town to town asking for scraps, you move between cases, trying to feed your mind but you are always, underneath it all, starving, desperate, ravenous."

He stares at her.

She steps close to him, her fingers on his left bicep, her eyes huge. "Your hunger is always with you," she whispers. "It gnaws at you like the rat inside the toga of the Roman boy. You cannot reveal it because it is your strength as well as your weakness. The rat is insatiable and you cannot allow the rat to eat, but eat it does. It must be fed or it will eat you. The rat is your hunger for knowledge, it eats at you and you hate it for never letting you stop, but still you love it because it makes you who you are."

She pulls aside the left lapel of his jacket and places her hand flat on his ribs. "The hunger is here, pulling at you and you can never satisfy it, only quiet it for a while."

She slips his jacket off his shoulders and lets it drop to the floor. Her hands are now matched on his arms. Her grip is firm. "You cannot escape the pain, you can only ignore it, and work."

She brings her body against his. He smells perfume, incredible after all this journey. Her breasts press against him. "I can help you ignore it," she says. "I know you seek ways to forget. -Your eyes tell me," she says when he looks sharply at this. "You always know when someone has sought oblivion, it stays in their eyes forever, that view of the black hole. But I can be a different sort of oblivion. If you'll let me."

She presses her fingers onto his shoulder blades and breathes onto his neck. Deliberate warmth, deliberate enticement. Her hair smells of woodsmoke, of desert nights.

He considers it.

She is dangerous. There is not even any hint that she will give up blackmail. It is her default mode. And if they do this thing, then forever she will know something of him that he prefers to keep private.

"I can be discreet," she says, apparently reading his thoughts. "You know I can."

"It is not about your discretion. It is about your ..." He cannot think of the word, with her standing so close to him. "Knowing," he says.

He feels her interest pick up as she wriggles against him, her hips pressing into his. She thinks he has just revealed something. He has not. He meant knowledge in the sense of experience, of him. He does not want to share himself with her. He does not want to know.

The trouble with that statement is that he does want to know. This is an opportunity to fill gaps in his experience - gaps he has been content to maintain, but which would be better filled. Some things he can never know - what is it like to have a baby, what is it like to have lived a thousand years ago - but this one can be ticked off the list with relative ease. It could have been done at any time, but lacking inclination, he has never got round to it.

It helps that she is intelligent, and moderately attractive. She is potent, this close, purposefully sweet and dark and alluring, and he can in fact imagine removing her clothes and his, and carrying her to the bed and –

What? He cannot picture any configuration of sexual activity which does not end with her laughing, mocking, triumphant. However she presents herself as filled with gratitude and longing, any appearance of mere passivity is only an act.

Then it strikes him. Of course. He need share nothing. He can simply do as she does, and act. And if one's sexual reputation is to be whispered about on the network of those who practise what she does, then what should the whispers say? Power, strength, and of course, fabulous technique. Although if it is true that her preference is not for men anyway, success in that department hardly matters. She proposes pleasure for him, a Thank you, and he can take it any way he chooses. Although... perhaps what he chooses, is to surprise her.

He bends his head to her hair, breathes in. His hands move onto her back, slide down her spine to her waist. She has a narrow waist, generous hips, the curves now under layers of rough blue silk, the fabric rustling and shifting under his fingers.

She sighs appreciatively. "Now that's more like it. So, how do you want me? It's any way you want, you know. I am ... open... to anything."

"Bondage does not interest me," he says. And bondage does not require a woman. There is only one thing, really, which specifically requires a woman.

"I don't have to tie you up. You could tie me up. Control. I think you'd enjoy that." Teasingly.

"A game of control is just a game, it is not real control."

"That's the point. It's a fantasy." She speaks against his neck, her lips brushing the skin beneath his ear.

"It is not my fantasy." He cannot see her face. She is a warm, soft body and in a shape he has never tried. Decision made.

"What is your fantasy?"

He looks at her. "I do not wish to become one of those people of whom you claim, I know what he likes."

"But there is a fantasy. Let me guess-"

"No."

His hand on her arm stops her speech.

His private wishes are just that. They are not for her. Oddly she seems not to have guessed, or perhaps the interests of her partners are not considered relevant. Punishment after all, does not aim to please. Or does it? A conundrum for another night, another partner.

"I can be whatever you want," she purrs.

He has to stop himself laughing. She really can't. "Be what you are," he says. "There is no need for pretense."

"But to act our our fantasies -"

"Not everything needs to be a fantasy," he says. "Some things can simply exist." His act, beginning.

He puts one finger under her chin, tilts her face up to his. "Some things," he says, "some things can simply be real."

And then he kisses her.

* * *

Her mouth under his is soft, surprised, permissive. He takes the lead and wraps his arms firmly around her, projecting strength and masculinity. Her kiss is little different to anyone else's, except for the lipstick. Why does lipstick need a fragrance? Surely the manufacturers would be better to focus on the taste (chemical, fatty, floral. Needs work.)

Her body is different, but this is the point. He wonders if there will be any genuine surprises. He suspects not.

He is wrong.

It is hard to catalogue, because he has to concentrate, to put himself into the moment, in order to maintain the appearance of interest. Small points of difference will need to be recalled later, separately. A major difference is how soft she feels under his hands. So much yielding flesh. Many curves, many places to lift and part, many points of enticement and readiness. On a purely physical level, a woman's body is evolved to receive sex as the male is evolved to give it. The species.

He can see the practical appeal, even if he does not share in it.

The most interesting aspect of the whole experience is her utter delight in having him. She loses the plot, early on and completely. If it is an act he cannot detect the edges. She admires his body, touches every pore, worships him (pleasant) and freely tells him that she loves him, that she has been in love with him for a long time, long before they met. (He deduced this ages ago.) She employs intimate technique on him (enjoyable) and cries out his name (annoying, in her voice) and insists on missionary position at least once (worth noting if nothing else).

She invites reciprocation, which in the interests of experimentation he supplies. He assumes his technique is acceptable, from the reaction. She says again and again that she knew it would be like this.

Intriguing. Did she really fantasize about sex with a man whose agenda is basically to lose his supposed virginity? Someone who cares little for her? Has his own act truly fooled her?

There is so much bluff within bluff that he cannot be bothered keeping track. After a reasonable number of orgasms each, he calls a halt by insisting upon sleep.

The last part is the most disturbing, and the hardest, now, to cast aside. As they lie back at last in the bed, Irene arranges herself on top of him with her face in his neck, her lips parted against his sweat-soaked skin, and whispers adoration into his throat until she slackens and falls silent, and he is left alone, to think, I did it, and, it makes no difference, and, what am I going to say to John?


	3. Later

Dinner. A French restaurant, John's favourite. Our hands on the table beside our plates. Exposed, on view. Separate. John looks at me often. He knows something is different. He knows I have done something, something out of my usual range of activity, and he is worried.

He moves. Slides my left jacket sleeve up, unbuttons my shirt cuff. I sit nicely and allow him to roll back my sleeve and rub his fingers over my forearm, the inside of the elbow. There are no marks, of course.

He doesn't bother to check the other arm. Knows I am right handed.

"Just being sure," he says in explanation. I nod. Quite right. I leave my arm slack on the table, and he sighs a smile and pulls down my sleeve, buttons me up again.

He sips his bottle of beer. I have one too, which I am ignoring.

Next is my neck. John gives me a doctor look, and curls his finger at me. I submit, bringing my head closer and he lightly touches the nail marks on my nape. His fingers go a bit further under my collar than necessary. I smirk. "Shut up," he says. "Well, you'll live. Anything I can't see, apart from wrenching your back?"

"I don't think so."

He presses his lips together. "Hmm. Not sure I should take your word for it." His gaze roams over my face and chest.

I clutch my chilly beer bottle. Is he - flirting?

Many calculations run through my mind. John, flirting. He isn't. He doesn't do that. But he was jealous of Irene. He knows I've seen her. He knows I've helped her, therefore. And as a result, he suspects she and I went to bed. He resents the idea. He wants me to himself. He wants me, full stop. Impossible. No, it isn't. It wouldn't be the first incident. It would only be be the first incident not completely engineered by me. John just tolerated those contacts. Or maybe he enjoyed them. Maybe he wants more. It is not impossible. His square, rough fingers under my collar. Oh god.

This, then, is my conclusion: meaningless blasphemy indicating loss of blood supply to the brain as a result of speculation about John's intentions. It's a miracle I get any work done.

John is watching me think, head tilted to one side, one eyebrow raised.

I take a risk. It is only me. He can ignore it or write it off as one of my mad moments if he chooses. Or he can take it at face value. It will be fine. Unless he understands, in which case -  
"Maybe you should check," I say, shrugging.

"Maybe I should," he says straight away.

I blink, break eye contact, study the tablecloth, look up at him again. His eyes. Blue like mine but darker, the colour of the sea on an overcast day. His mouth, lips just parted, tongue touching his upper left canine. "Home," I say, and we stand.

No need to pay. They know me here. Outside, straight into a cab. Sit looking out of our respective windows. John's left hand is on the seat between us. My hands are in my gloves.

My pulse rate is increased. I can feel my heartbeat throughout my body. Stress. Excitement. John shows neither. He meant nothing by it. Just messing about. The way we do. Two blokes together, two mates. Two friends.

"You let her touch you," he says without looking round.

I freeze. "Yes."

I knew he knew.

He turns then, examines my face. His eyes are crinkling at the corners, hiding hurt. Hurt at being lied to? Hurt at my ...infidelity?

"Where?" he asks quietly. "-I don't mean which country. Where did she touch you?"

I hesitate. "Everywhere."

He flinches. Looks involuntarily at my legs, my ... groin.

Oh. So this is real, then. Not so many maybes after all, and I have asked him to be my doctor in a way we both understand.

"It was an experiment," I say. "I just - wanted to know."

He nods.

How to explain that it did not mean anything? That Irene is interesting but not important. "I -"

"Was it good?" he interrupts.

"I don't know." Not quite true. "It was different."

This gets me a sharp look. So he did think I had zero experience, then. Mycroft's gossip. Irritating and damaging.

"Parts of it were good," I say. If I am to be honest about this, I must be completely honest.

John blinks several times. Tears? Or an attempt to disguise emotions usually visible in the eyes? I don't know what to say or do. I seem to have upset him but it is not clear with what. Is it sex, sex with a woman, sex with Irene or sex with anyone except John? Or is he upset because I lied about a mission which could have left me dead and unidentified in a hostile country, never coming home. (I never thought of it from that perspective. John's eyes show fear for me so often that I have tuned it out.)

We are at Baker Street. I pay the cabbie and John gives me a look. I never pay. But tonight is different. Already we have shared more detail than ever previously, about our intimate lives. Well, mine. I suppose he realises that I already know everything he did with everyone he's ever brought back to the flat.

Upstairs, we stand in the living room, coats off, and avoid each other's gaze. I look around our cosy home and ask, "What gave it away?"

John gives a brief laugh. "You. You looked so guilty."

Then he seems sad again and I have to act. "Please,' I say, and he looks up at me. I never say please. "Check me. I - " I am blushing, so embarrassing, but it is too late to unsay it now so I continue. "I want you to."

He put this card on the table and I am playing it. A private fantasy, which he has guessed, or which, perhaps, he shares. And another reason why Irene could not play this game with me. She is not a real doctor.

Johns hand goes to his mouth and he rubs at it, at his chin. "All right."

I stand still. He stays where he is, looking me up and down. I notice my hands are trembling, and curl them into fists.

"Don't," he says. "Stand there." His doctor voice. A little touch of his soldier voice thrown in. Oh John. How did you know?

I can barely breathe. I loosen my hands as he asked.

He steps to me, nods, then puts his hands on my shirt collar. He is warm. I am burning up. The top button is open as always, but now John undoes the next two, three, four, and pulls the shirt apart. He places his hands on my bare chest, fingers splayed. "Hmmm." The vibration of his assessment passes from his chest to mine. A channel between us, an audible connection.

It is not a moment to speak, even assuming I could.

"Off," John says, brushing at my shirt. "I need to see your back."

I wriggle out of the shirt and drop it on the floor. As it settles into a puddle of purple cloth, I think: the first piece of evidence. Someone walking in later would see that shirt and know that I undressed here, or was undressed. You don't leave a shirt on the floor in passing.

This makes me think of people outside, able to see us through the windows.

I look across but John, now pacing round me and frowning, says, "I closed the curtain before we left. In case."

I had not thought it possible to find the situation any more erotic, but the idea that he imagined this, planned this, is powerful. I almost drop but his stern expression keeps me in place.

John touches my back with delicate fingers. He traces routes along and down and I close my eyes and see his touch like contrails and my skin is the sky. "Your back seems fine," he pronounces.

He comes round to face me. Gives me a raised eyebrow, then crouches down. I gasp, but he is only unlacing my shoes, taking them off, then my socks. He does this so matter-of-factly that I want to exclaim, to speak, to push my hands into his hair and tell him that he can do anything, however he likes, that whatever he wants I will not object, he can have me, all of me, now, please.

He gets to his feet and stands in front of me.

"John - " My voice is thick. My body is gearing up, to run, to fight, to engage. It has been a long time. Except for last night, obviously. Last night does not count.

His expression does not change, but his eyes flicker. "Did she touch you here?" he asks, and rests his left palm on my right pectoral.

"Yes-"

"Here?" His right hand on my belly.

"Yes."

His breath catches. His fingers trail down my navel to my belt. "You want me to check," he confirms, his little finger on my buckle.

"God yes-"

He steps away. For a horrible moment I think it was all an experiment in revenge - paying me back for my betrayal, my unfaithfulness to the us I had hardly begun to imagine. But then he says, "Help me get out of this," and pulls off his sweater. I reach for him, tug at it, not really helping at all. I never really help when there is an opportunity to lay my hands on his warm, firm body.

He smirks at my eagerness, and the sweater lands on top of my shirt.

He has a checked shirt on underneath, and - my fingers on his shoulder blades, still notionally helping - a T shirt under that. I gaze at him and completely fail to get any of the buttons undone. He puts his hand over mine, over his heart, and stares at me with his perfect steadiness, and my fingers return to life.

He is hard and smooth under the T shirt. I want to take it off, but also to keep it on because he always covers himself up and he should really walk around in just a T shirt. It makes him look -

In the mirror over the fireplace I see us reflected, my pale and naked chest, John in a fitted white T shirt. It makes him look overtly masculine, even more than his everyday potent maleness. In a T shirt and no jumper he could have anyone he chooses, I think, and am amazed by this simple revelation. So why all the layers? I don't care. He has taken them off for me.

I turn back to him and he smiles at me, a brief, professional smile. I wait, even though the waiting is painful, is agony, is the best thing that has ever happened to me. _Please John. Please._

It is his move to make and he does not hesitate. He takes hold of my shoulders and kisses me. Not on the cheek, as he has done once before, reviving me after a fall, not on the forehead, as I lay sleeping on the sofa after four days on a case with no rest, not my hand as he did after I told him I had to go away and didn't say where, and he said, _Just come back,_ and now I have. He kisses my mouth, softly, and I break, just break apart. _John, don't stop, more, please kiss me again, more -_

My words emerge as a single sob of relief and desire.

He folds me into his arms and kisses me again. Lips, tongue, his warmth and wetness inside me, promising more, promising me everything.

I run my hands over his back, grip his hair, gasp into the kiss and pull his hips against mine.

"John," I say, hoarse with want, with gratitude for his maleness, and he takes my hands and puts them on his jeans. Rough denim over firm muscle. Perfect. His fingers are inside the back of my trousers and he is nuzzling my neck, kissing, sucking, biting -

The biting is likely to end me. I detach him and run my fingers over his face. He laughs and puts my index finger into his mouth. "Oh god -"

"Bed," he says, pulling my finger free and curling his hand around mine. "I want to -"

_Say it. Say it now. _But he stands wincing until I suggest, "You're jealous of her. Irene."

His nostrils flare at her name. "Sort of. I don't know. I just - Listen. You're not the only one with curiosity. You wanted to know so you found out. Fine. Well, now I want to. Know," he says, and I am lost.

"I love you," I say, and my eyes go wide. Words I have never said to anyone. Words I never intended to utter, but they burst from me - from my gut, my heart I suppose, without my permission. They are true. He is my only person. And I love him.

His eyes fill with tears. "I know," he says. "Come on." He tugs me through the kitchen.

I hardly trust myself now to give an answer. He is drawing reactions unbidden from me. At my bedroom door, however, he stops and gives me an enquiring look. Squeezes my fingers. "Where shall we start?"

I look at my hand clasped within his competent grip. I am his, I have declared it now and there is no further need for self restraint. I am home from the desert and free, and about to live out, it seems, my own secret desire. So I breathe deeply, allow my heart rate to soar in blissful anticipation and say simply, "Everywhere."

He grins, elbows open my door and I let him lead me inside.

* * *

**Author's note.** There is a bonus chapter for this story, Even Later, on AO3. Just telling what happens next. If you're interested. -Sef


End file.
